9248: BBC - OAS official refers to "difficult moments" in talks with Lavalas (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

Haiti: OAS official refers to "difficult moments" in talks with Lavalas 
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 15, 2001
 

[Announcer] The 15th OAS [Organization of American States] mission, which was led by Assistant Secretary-General Luigi Einaudi, has failed. Once again the OAS has not managed to bring the Lavalas Family [FL] and the Convergence to the conclusion of a political accord to solve the crisis issued from the contested 21 May elections. Nothing positive came out of the two meetings between the FL and the Convergence. But Einaudi seems to have identified who is responsible for blocking [a resolution to the crisis]. Jean Numa Goudou reports the following: 

[Goudou - recording] The second encounter lasted only two hours. The mediators and the protagonists announced the news to the press. The OAS had made the following proposal: to hold the legislative elections in November 2002 and local elections in the first quarter of 2003. The Convergence agreed for the legislative elections to take place in November 2002 and proposed for the second round to take place together with the local elections during the first 60 days of 2003. The FL then accused the Convergence as well as the OAS of plotting against the current regime. Yvon Neptune said: 

[Neptune] //That proposal seems to ignore the presence of the elected representatives. It is as though elections are to be held for senators and deputies without taking into account the 21 May elections. Meanwhile, President [Jean-Bertrand] Aristide in the commitment he made said he agreed with the sacrifice the senators made and the sacrifice of the deputies. He agreed for early elections to take place. This does not seem to be of interest to the OAS. It seems that it is not of interest to the Convergence either.// 

[Goudou] Then Lavalas in its counter-proposal wants the November elections to be considered early elections and that the local elections should take place in June 2003 for a special reason, which is the celebration of the bicentennial in 2004. The Convergence then disagreed with the terms early elections, the celebration of the bicentennial. Paul Denis said: 

[Denis] As far as we are concerned, it should not be an early election. Because those people who are in parliament took office by infraction. //It is a group of people who do not have a mandate. They acceded to that position by force and the complicity of former President Preval. The other stumbling block they added is that they proposed the month of June. We could have discussed that, of course. But then they came up with that issue of a bicentennial celebration. That is something that concerns the government. What happened is that while they are asking us to discuss a proposal, to accept a proposal, they are asking us at the same time to accept the actions the de facto government, which we have contested, proposes to accomplish in the future.// 

[Goudou] Now let us see the point of view of the OAS through its representative Einaudi, whom FL has accused of plotting against the regime. Einaudi said that there is nothing like that either against the FL or Haiti. 

[Einaudi] I want to tell you that we have found very significant cooperation on the part of the members of the Democratic Convergence during these series of discussions. And I do not want to deny the fact that there have been difficult moments with certain representatives of the FL. [End of recording] 

Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 15 Oct 01 

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.